Obama continues to press for more fuel-efficient vehicles with new budget proposal

Despite the fact that consumers are not adopting electric vehicles and hybrids in force, the Obama administration continues to push ahead encouraging new vehicle research and broader availability for electric vehicles and hybrids. The federal government has handed out loans to help spur research and development to bring more fuel-efficient vehicles and other green technologies to market, and those loans have backfired on several occasions.

While Tesla Motors by all accounts seems to be thriving, producing upwards of 500 cars/week, some of its competitors haven’t been so lucky. Fisker was one of the recipients of a large government-backed loan and the company is expected to file bankruptcy soon.

President Obama has sent his 2014 budget proposal to Congress this week and while many programs and services are seeing their budgets cut, Obama is calling for a massive boost in money available for vehicle research. President Obama wants to increase the Energy Departments vehicle research budget by 75% to $575 million.

Tesla Model S assembly line [Image Source: Tesla Motors via Flickr]

Obama also wants to create a $2 billion trust fund to research ways to wean the country off foreign oil over the next 10 years.

"We'll continue our march toward energy independence," said Obama.

Obama is also calling for provisions in his budget to help jumpstart sagging electric vehicle sales. The president wants to increase the tax credit for electric vehicle purchases from $7,500 today to $10,000. With the current tax credit, the electric vehicle buyer takes the tax incentive as a discount on their yearly taxes. Obama's new plan would allow consumers to take the discount at the point of sale as a rebate.

The budget also wants to accelerate research and development for emerging battery technologies and new manufacturing processes to allow the automotive industry to produce cheaper electric vehicles with better range and faster charging capability.

quote: less regulation which caused the housing meltdown and the bailout of the Banks

The Republicans were the ones wanting more regulation on Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac because they saw the writing on the wall. The Democrats were the ones that were forcing the banks to give out loans to people they knew couldn't possibly pay back. Anytime the Republicans tried to regulate the banks to stop this practice, Barney Frank (LIBERAL) and his ilk stopped it cold and let the practice continue. And look what happened. The people that got those loans couldn't afford to make the payments, defaulted on those loans, filed for bankruptcy or just walked away. This is what caused the housing bubble to burst which froze credit, made it nearly impossible for GM and Chrysler to secure loans which caused them to go into bankruptcy. These actions make you proud to be a liberal?

quote: Under Obama, we have an economy on the mend,

Debatable. It is stagnant. A paltry 2.3% growth is not mending. When Reagan inherited Carter's mess, his plans caused triple the growth than what his happening under Obama.

quote: unemployment dropping

More likely due to the fact that people have stopped looking for work, so the numbers are fudged making it look like, hey, less people are looking for work, so that means we have gains in employment. Kinda goes hand in hand with Obama putting more people on assistance than ever before.

quote: Debatable. It is stagnant. A paltry 2.3% growth is not mending. When Reagan inherited Carter's mess, his plans caused triple the growth than what his happening under Obama.

A "paltry" 2.3% growth is considered pretty amazing unless you're an emerging market... The EU is flatlining with some member states in technical recession. The EU went a bit too nuts on austerity which has led to a pretty dramatic increase in unemployment (and given their social welfare practices, have been effectively wrecking their economies by swapping tax income for social expenses). I know my fellow Irish compatriots would kill for your paltry growth...

quote: More likely due to the fact that people have stopped looking for work, so the numbers are fudged making it look like, hey, less people are looking for work, so that means we have gains in employment. Kinda goes hand in hand with Obama putting more people on assistance than ever before.

Don't more people naturally end up requiring social assistance as unemployment arises under a Republican president? ;) You can twist that all day to mean anything...

Quote from one of the links: "In 1996, HUD directed Freddie and Fannie to provide at least 42% of their mortgage financing to borrowers with income below the median in their area. This target was increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. Under the Bush Administration HUD continued to pressure Fannie and Freddie to increase affordable housing purchases – to as high as 56 percent by the year 2008."

Seems the Bush administration was pushing for these loans, isn't that a Republican president by the way? Though if you read the links, they do mention that the Housing bubble wasn't the prime reason, seems the sub-prime loans that Wallstreet was dealing out were the primary reason, and I believe it was the Republicans that removed many of the regulations, but there is fault all around. Does this make you proud to be a Republican.

Now if you going to say that their is a conspiracy around Wikipedia providing this information, I'd like to point out that there are footnotes, included to backup these assertions. We know how some nutcases like to spin conspiracy theories.

I've heard many of the arguments that you're laying while watching the Presidental debate but instead of listening to the talking points of the candidates maybe look beyond that.

You do know Reagan raised taxes 11 times, right? He also grew the national debt from less than 1 trillion to greater than 2 trillion. Yes, he cut taxes during his first term but after that had to raise taxes 11 times to make up the shortfall that caused and borrow money to offset his shortfall. Let's not forget that his last year in office was rocked with the Iran-Contra affair which ended up with several of his staff in jail. Personally, I liked Reagan.

As to the unemployment numbers, if you have facts to back up what you're talking about please present them. This is the labor board that is presenting the numbers. Every president has used them since they started collecting them, but then just because a president you may not approve of is using the same agency, you claim there must be something funny about the numbers. Please, do you have any proof to backup your allegations? Even State unemployment numbers have improved significantly, some maybe not so much.

quote: The people that got those loans couldn't afford to make the payments, defaulted on those loans, filed for bankruptcy or just walked away.

Doesn't matter. A bank is supposed to secure all its loans with adequate backing. For a house, that means a down payment to cover possible depreciation. When someone defaults on their mortgage, they only get to keep what's left after the auction pays the bank enough for the principle plus default fees. Losses would then effectively come out of the down payment.

Instead, they greedily pursued high interest, low (even zero) down payment loans, i.e. the sub-prime market. That's the free market at work, where the banks used past data to model risk and depreciation, and competed with each other for this seemingly profitable market.

quote: When Reagan inherited Carter's mess, his plans caused triple the growth than what his happening under Obama.

Reagan's policies exploded private debt and used it as a crutch for growth. When you give tax cuts to the rich, they save a lot more, and banks then lend a lot more. It worked for decades, until the Bush tax cuts had private debt growing at the rate of over 25% of GDP per year. Private debt is $40T now, absolutely dwarfing gov't debt.

That method can't work now, as the crutch is broken. The rich are saving more than the banks can safely lend out, despite zero interest discouraging them from doing so. We ran head first into the limits of what we can get from private debt creation. That well is dry.

NOTHING will cure the economy without more demand. Not tax cuts, not debt repayment, not regulation removal, nothing. People with high income need to spend more voluntarily (fat chance of that happening) or be taxed so the spenders (either the gov't or the middle/lower classes) will do it for them. Without more demand, businesses have no reason for net hiring, investors have few new production needs to invest in, and unemployment only gets worse.

quote: Doesn't matter. A bank is supposed to secure all its loans with adequate backing.

And they used to. Except some Democrats decided that was "unfair" to minorities. It excluded them from home-ownership. Hence the sub-prime mortgage was created and the banks were bullied into submission to offer them.

quote: Reagan's policies exploded private debt and used it as a crutch for growth.

Bull. Prove it. I want links from non-Liberal sources that make sense out of this assertion. Because it's not backed by any rational unbiased analysis. Debt was already exploding from Carters insane inflation and unemployment, idiot!

quote: NOTHING will cure the economy without more demand. Not tax cuts, not debt repayment, not regulation removal, nothing. People with high income need to spend more voluntarily (fat chance of that happening) or be taxed so the spenders (either the gov't or the middle/lower classes) will do it for them. Without more demand, businesses have no reason for net hiring, investors have few new production needs to invest in, and unemployment only gets worse.

Correct.

Where you fail is to recognize WHY "demand" is low and has remained so under Obama.

1. Massive banking regulations leading to the banks basically afraid to take any risks, especially with loans.

2. A President who's lost more jobs than he's created, threatens to raise taxes, and is spending us into bankruptcy.

3. Obamacare and other regulations causing MASSIVE economic uncertainty. This has caused a hiring slump and other issues. Nobody knows which way the country will turn or what is coming next or what the thousands of pages of regulations from Obamacare actually means to their bottom line.

You're correct that the "rich" and corporations are holding onto their money, taking less risks, and waiting this mess out. But you fail to realize the policies you're supporting are CAUSING this to happen!

quote: People with high income need to spend more voluntarily (fat chance of that happening)

Funny but they seem to spend plenty, hire more, and take more risks when the times are good and a Keynesian isn't running wild in the White House.

Instead of recognizing the why, you instead choose to scorn the "rich" for not going along with Obama's horrible economic vision to their own detriment. Would you!??

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